Festive Season Skincare

When winter arrives I always change up my skincare so that my skin is getting enough moisture. One of the easiest ways you can do that is to use a shower oil because it's gentale and won't strip your skin of it's natural oils and it means that because it leaves a veil of moisture on your body, there's no need to apply body cream after your shower. My new favourite product for this is No.7 Luxurious Foaming Shower Oil (£8.75 for 250ml) which is a great dupe for L'Occitane Almond Shower Gel which is priced at £15.00 for 250ml. It contains Argan Oil, Grapeseed Oil and omega 6 and 9. It foams up really well and you only need a small amount on a shower puff to cover your whole body. I use it every day and my skin is now silky soft, it would be great for anyone who has dry or sensitive skin.

Next up is my favourite gentle exfoliator of late, The Sanctuary Body Scrub. I like to exfoliate regularly all year round and this product is gentle enough to be used every second or third day in the shower. When you are a fake tan lover, exfoliation is a MUST as you all know. It's not scratchy at all and you don't end up with angry looking skin. The scrub contains Patchouli, Orange Oil and natural Pumice and smells delicious! I find it really refreshing to use and my skin feels amazing after using it. I found that although it's not an intense exfoliator, it really smoothes out your skin beautifully.

I also like to use a good clarifying face mask when winter swoops in as I often find my skin goes a bit crazy, I dunno if it overcompensates to avoid getting dry but at the start of winter, I always get a little breakout of spots! Very annoying! Luckily, I have a few products to prevent it from happening most of the time. One of them is The Sanctuary Warming Charcoal Detox Mask which is a self-heating thermal mask designed to refine skin texture and prevent any blemishes from appearing. It contains Kaolin clay and the essential oil of myrrh so your skin is left feeling really clean, fresh and incredible soft. I often find this mask is a life saver when I have overdone it the night before and need a 'pick me up'! Used on a regular basis (once a week), it really helps to keep your skin clear.

Another product I have been loving lately is Lisa Hoffman Night & Day Vitamin A & C Serum. This serum is packed full of ingredients that will keep your skin super moisturised and radiant. I always apply it at night before my moisturiser. I never apply it in the morning as it has a slightly oily consistency and so is best suited as a night treatment. My makeup would NEVER stay in place if I tried to apply it over this product. The serum is designed to retexturise and improve skin clarity and has alot of anti-ageing properties. I always find my skin looks really luminous the next day after applying it. It gets rid of any dry patches and keeps my skin in tip top condition no matter how cold the weather gets. This product feels so luxurious and you really feel like your doing something good for your skin every time you apply it. The website also says that it "improves the production of collagen and reduces skin damage caused by free radicals".

What is your skincare routine for winter? What products do you swear by to combat the cold harsh weather?

Hot Pink Nails!

I don't know about you but I have been obsessed with hot pink nails for a long time now and I just can't get enough of them! I especially love this Essie nailpolish called Bachelorette Bash which is a perfect colour for me (it makes my hands look kinda tanned which is weird but true!). I really like Essie polishes, they're very high quality and they last a long time if you seal then with a good top coat. This one is just the right consistency too and I found that I only needed one coat! Normally I would need at least 2 coats to get good coverage. This will definitely be my 'go-to' polish for the festive season...I love a pop of colour!

What's your favourite shade at the moment?

FOTD using some new products

Revlon Colorstay in True Beige
Lise Watier Concealer Wheel - this is brilliant, review coming soon!
Korres Wild Rose Brightening Powder WRP3
Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Soft Matte Bronzer (all over face) - love this!
Bare Minerals Faux Tan (to Contour)
Rouge Bunny Rouge Highlighting Liquid in Sea of Showers (applied to cheekbones and down centre of nose. Alot of people requested to see this in a FOTD and you will see from the pic that the effect is SO natural and glowy)

Benefit Brows a go-go palette
Benefit Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in Tattle Tale (all over lid as a base)
MAC e/s in Shroom (all over lid and on brow bone)
MAC e/s in Omega (in crease to add definition)
MAC e/s in Smoke & Diamonds (in outer corner and blended to centre of lid) - love it!
Korres Shimmering e/s in White (dotted on middle of eyelid to highlight and in inner corners)
Benefit Bad Gal pencil (along top lashline) - wanna try the waterproof version that now out!
MAC e/s in Print (to soften eyeliner)
Estee Lauder Sumptuous Mascara in Black
GOSH Darling Lipstick
YSL Golden Gloss in Golden Peony

Review of New CID Cosmetics

I just wanted to review a couple of New CID Cosmetics products that I have been using lately and to give you my thoughts on them. First up is I-Glow Ice Pop which is similar to a MSC Mineral Skin Finish. Here's the blurb "i - glow is hand baked unlike many other powders which use waxes to stick ingredients together. This means i - glow glides smoothly over skin to create a radiant and youthful look. Great for accentuating a tan, the special ingredients ‘bounce' light off the skin.
For a fresh, luminous look, dust i - glow Ice Pop all over the face, neck and shoulders with a big powder brush".

It has the same marbelised look to it as a MAC MSF and can be used as a highlighter, blush, all over powder or an eye shadow. I really like the clean, practical packaging and the colour is a gorgeous soft pink. The powder is buttery smooth and can be built up if you want to wear it as a blush. I found it looked very similar to MAC Well Dressed as it just gives the prettiest flush of pale pink to your cheeks. It looks very natural as there is no shimmer or glittery particles, perfect for daytime use! I have also used it lightly all over my face to brighten my complexion and that works really well too. It gives a nice glowy finish to my makeup without creating a shiny or greasy look to the skin. Here's a swatch...

I love this product and because you get twice as much as you would in a MAC Blush like Well Dressed, I think it's good value for money at £20.00. It's multi-purpose as well so it would be great for saving space when travelling when you need a product that has a few uses. It's also the kind of shade that would suit alot of people because it's so subtle.

I wasn't as impressed with the i-Flick eyeliner in Black. Here's the blurb "i - flick is a double ended liquid and kohl liner that makes creating the ‘Sixties' flick a no-brainer. It's a tried and tested look that shows no signs of going away, heavily influenced by the doe-eyed, kohl rimmed eyes that prevailed in the 1960's, it's also a look that makes everyone look instantly cooler. Designed to make applying precision eye-liner easy for everyone (and let's face it, it's a hard one to get right). In fact, i - flick's special capillary system which controls the flow of ink to the brush nib makes it virtually impossible to make a mistake!"

Here's what the product looks like...

And with the lids off...

I am a big fan of liquid eyeliner as you all know and I have tried so many of them that I just won't put up with anything that's falls below par. My problem with this product was that the pigmentation in the liquid liner was just very poor and when I swatched it, it actually came out looking more dark grey than black. Maybe the problem lies in the 'capilliary' liquid pen design that controls the ink flowing to the end...maybe it works TOO well and waters down the colour on application. All I know is that I like my liquid liner to be intensely black to create good definition and this one just didn't cut it. The khol pencil on the other side is ok, but nothing special and it didn't have great staying power either. Here's the swatches...

The liquid liner is on the top and the khol on the bottom. The khol is actually darker than the liquid liner!

So, all in all, I would recommend the i-glow but not the i-Flick. I much prefer my new Estee Lauder Double Wear Liquid Liner which just refuses to budge and gives the most intense black I have seen yet in a liner!

Lee Stafford Hair Growth Treatment

Project healthy hair is still going strong and I've added another product to my haircare arsenal to try and encourage growth and generally improve the condition and look of my hair. There's a big buzz around at the moment over hair growth products (I've heard that Boots do one and I'm guessing that's the mysterious product that Lollipop26 is trying at the moment although she hasn't divulged that information as yet). I had heard some good things about the Lee Stafford Hair Growth Treatment pictured above so I decided to pick some up a few weeks ago as I was browsing around Boots (I NEVER just browse in Boots, I always buy something!). I got a 200ml tub for £6.84.

This is what the product looks like inside...

It is described as a "gorgeous, thick intensive treatment with Pro-Growth™ complex gives your hair strength from within by fertilising your follicles, creating a healthy environment on your scalp to help hair grow faster and reach its maximum potential length. Its soothing formulation reduces irritation and moisturises the scalp, helping to keep it healthy and improving the volume and feel of your hair".This treatment is designed to be used between shampoo and conditioner, however, since my hair is so fine and flyaway, I didn't want to weight it down by using the treatment and then conditioner on top. So I have just been using it like an intensive conditioner, brushing it through, massaging my scalp and leaving it on for 5 minutes every time I wash my hair (which is pretty much every day). It smells lovely too! It instructs you to scoop out an amount the size of an egg but I found that half of that amount was enough to cover my long fine hair. I have been doing this for the past 5 weeks and this is what my hair looks like now after just blowdrying it straight (I didn't use straighteners or any kind of serum)...

I am SO SO happy with the condition of my hair after using this product on a regular basis, it's shiny, bouncy and feels lovely and soft (without being so soft that it goes all fuzzy). This has worked wonders on my fine hair, I'm not sure how it would work on thicker or coarse hair but if you have fine hair then I would definitely give it a go. I was pretty cynical about whether it would make my hair grow but it has definitely made a difference. It's been just over 5 weeks since I had my hair trimmed and it's grown alot faster than it normally would. Generally when I leave more than 6 weeks between trims, my hair starts to get split ends and generally just looks a bit untidy, plus it never sits right. However, since using this treatment, my hair feels as nice as it does just after I've had my hair cut. I don't have as many split ends and my colour hasn't gone dull like it usually does (I get highlights every 6 weeks). I think you really do have to use this each time you wash to see the optimum results but once you're happy with the length/condition of your hair, you can just switch to using it once a week.

So, now I've found a product that helps my hair grow...I want one to make me have thicker hair!ha ha. I'm never happy! I think I will have to buy clip in extensions to achieve that and I reckon I will get some at the end of the month so stay tuned for updates on that.

Michael Kors for Estee Lauder!

The lovely Shangri-La (http://shangri-la-beauty.blogspot.com/) tipped me off about an upcoming limited edition Michael Kors and Estee Lauder collaboration due to be launched in January next year called 'Very Hollywood'! How exciting!

So I got on the case and found these pics:

Alot of people have commented that some of it looks very 'Barbie' but I quite like Barbie shades!ha ha. I love the look of the lipglosses and lipsticks! The range has been split into two camps...Bel Air Beige which will consist of nude shades with with shimmery peaches for cheeks and lips, beige and warm browns for the eyes, and an opaque beige nail polish, The Rodeo Pink collection consists of vibrant pinks, grey/silver eye duos for smokey eyes, whilst lips and nails will be shades of hot cerise. There's also a loose shimmer powder in pearly pink for the signature 'Kors glow'.Each one will feature two lipglosses, two lipsticks, one blush, an eyeshadow duo, an eye pencil, and a corresponding nail lacquer.

I dunno about you, but this really appeals to me! There are nude shades to suit everyone by the look of it and you can't go wrong with pink. Maybe it's because I'm such a girly girl, but the nudes and browns also sound great. Due to my recent rediscovery of Estee Lauder, I can't wait for this to launch so I can run down to my nearest counter and swatch to my heart's content!

Will you be checking it out?

Review of Estee Lauder Goodies

This post is a review of the following Estee Lauder products pictured above:

Bronze Goddess Soft Matte Bronzer

Sumptuous Bold Volume Lifting Mascara

Double Wear Zero Smudge Liquid Liner in Black

Maximum Cover Camouflage Makeup in Light/Medium

Double Wear Stay In Place Shadow Creme in Antique Gold (no.4)

Bronze Goddess Soft Matte Bronzer - As I have said before, for daytime use, I much prefer matte bronzers as they have a more natural finish (shimmery does not equal natural!). The Estee Lauder website describes this product as a "silky, luxurious powder bronzer.Works with virtually any skintone. Sweep it on and the smooth, oil-free powder gives face, shoulders and décolletage a seductive bronze look.Unique oil-control complex keeps skin shine-free and comfortable". The first thing I noticed about the bronzer is that it's in the Barry M bronzer colour category in that it has a mauve undertone to it. This ensures that it doesn't look orangey on the skin and gives a much more subtle effect. The powder is extremely finely milled and silky smooth to apply. It didn't leave any streaks and the colour is perfect, my skin looked golden without being over the top, it's incredibly natural looking. I love the fact that it's matte (if you look VERY closely there is a teeny tiny amount of shimmer particles in the powder but this is definitely not visible on the skin). It created a lovely matte finish without looking powdery or cakey. Here's a swatch of the product...

You get quite alot of product and there's a brush provided that feels really soft and of high quality (as I've said before, some brushes that come with these type of products can be scratchy). I prefer to apply this bronzer with a big bronzer brush but I would definitely use the big brush provided in the compact for touch-ups during the day. I must say though that the powder is very long lasting as I haven't have to re-apply it yet. There is a plastic lid that fits over the bronzer to avoid any messiness. The powder felt comfortable on my skin and wasn't drying in the slightest. I LOVE this bronzer!

Sumptuous Bold Volume Lifting Mascara - I had heard alot of good things about this mascara from other people (I think Aleksis a.k.a. Alpha Blonde had also tried a small sample of this product). I am always on the lookout for a good mascara and I generally have two categories...daytime mascara that gives good length and staying power but doesn't have to create much volume as I like a clean look for work. My nightime mascara has to be deeply black, lengthening, volumising and basically make my lashes look false. This is where Sumptuous comes in. Normally I have to apply a lash primer to achieve the false eyelash look but this mascara gives amazing lift and volume without the need for another product. This has all the benefits of YSL Faux Cils but without the short lifespan (YSL one dries out way too fast as we all know). The website describes Sumptuous as having an "unprecedented Bold Volume™ formula that has ultra light, lash-thickening fibers. Lifts and plumps even sparse lashes into big, lush lashes that are all lightness and flirtatious curl. Exclusive BrushComber™ thickens like a brush. Defines like a comb. Wraps your entire lash in air-light volume. Lashes soar with 360° lift and curl". Here's what the brush looks like...

I really love this mascara and I would go as far as to say that I have found my new holy grail of mascaras! It's perfect - it gives my lashes loads of length and volume, it doesn't clump or flake off, it doesn't smudge even after 12 hours of wear. You can also layer it to your heart's delight so you can control how much drama you want to add to your eyes. I can't fault this mascara! The packaging feels expensive and the formula is just the right consistency, not too wet and not too dry. Because of this formula, it doesn't dry out like the YSL one AND it's cheaper! This is the effect it gives....
I am really starting to wonder why on earth I have neglected Estee Lauder for so long!

Double Wear Zero Smudge Liquid Liner in Black - I have been looking for a black liquid eyeliner that I can really rely on for long-wear and with a non-smudge formula. I have tried MAC Liquidlast and GOSH Extreme Art Liners and they are good but these have proven to be a nightmare to remove at the end of the day! They also have brush applicators which can be tricky to use at times. I much prefer the felt tip style liquid liners as they are alot easier to use when you are in a rush and there's more chance you will get a straight clean line as there are no brush fibres splaying out everywhere. Here's what the applicator looks like...

This liquid liner lasted the whole day without running into my inner waterline and without smudging. The colour is a very intense black and the firm felt tip applicator gives you alot of control to create a precise clean line. The main reason I love this liner is because even though it refuses to budge during the day, it's easy to remove at night with a makeup remover wipe. I personally hate it when I have to scrub my eyes to get a product off and it's certainly not good for the delicate eye area. If you are a big fan of black liquid liners like me then you will love this product!

Maximum Cover Camouflage Makeup in Light/Medium - I have been happy with my Revlon Colorstay Foundation of late but fancied a change to check out maximum coverage foundation. I wanted to see how the consistency and coverage differed from other foundations. On the website this foundation is described as a foundation that "Has SPF15, conceals skin imperfections, including surgical and acne scars, birthmarks, sun spots and varicose veins, with this soothing, natural-looking makeup.Full Coverage, Natural-looking, Long-wearing, Waterproof, Non-transferable. Ideal for post-surgery use as directed by your physician. Dermatologist-tested, Non-acnegenic, Non-fragranced". I have the Light/Medium shade which looks like this:

Let me first explain that I don't have acne or any scars to conceal, however I like to have this type of product to hand in case I get a bad breakout of Psoriasis. This isn't a foundation I would wear every day but it's handy to have in case you have a bad breakout of spots etc. The formula is incredibly light and I was shocked at how weightless it felt on my skin!You only need a tiny amount of this product and the coverage is fantastic. The formula is very unique because on contact with the skin, it sort of transforms into a light powder without sacrificing any coverage. I think that's the reason why it feels so light. This product could also be used as a light concealer. It lasts all day without budging at all and to be honest, I would even go as far as to say that the formula is lighter than that of Revlon Colorstay. It's certainly a thinner consistency. I was super impressed with this foundation and I can see how it would be so useful for anyone with scars or acne. Obviously if you don't suffer from any of these problems then this foundation may not be for you but for anyone with something like Rosacea (a condition that causes extreme redness) then this product could be a life saver. Top marks to Estee Lauder for coming up with such a great product and addressing a part of the consumer market that is rarely explored by other high end brands.

Double Wear Stay In Place Shadow Creme in Antique Gold (no.4) - I am a big fan of MAC Paint Pots however I sometimes feel like there isn't enough colour choice (or at least ones that suit my skintone). As you know, I am a big fan of golds and bronzes and this product definitely falls into that category. The website describes the product as a "cream eyeshadow that delivers intense colour that lasts up to 15 hours and goes on fast, stay-true colour at your fingertips with matte to demi-pearl finishes, creamy formula goes on smoothly, blends easily. Seamless coverage won't crease or fade. Can be worn alone or layered under powder eyeshadow". Generally, I would use these types of products as a base for my powder eyeshadow to create a good base and intensify the colour. However, I have been wearing this cream eyeshadow alone as the colour is so gorgeous (can be seen in my last FOTD). Here's a swatch of the product...

It really does live up to it's description and it's definitely on par with MAC Paint Pots. The reason why this range has the edge is purely because the shades are more flattering and varied.

The main thing I have realised through trying these products is that I shouldn't have dismissed the Estee Lauder brand for so long. I loved every single product. I had assumed it was a brand for more mature ladies as the marketing seems to be driven that way. However, they have alot to offer us younger ladies and the quality of their products is second to none.